Pixar Animation Studios has released Tractor 1.0, its software package for running distributed processing in render farms.
Tractor, derived from Pixar’s experience in managing the world’s largest render farms through its RenderMan and Alfred applications, is a completely new solution engineered to ensure performance and scalability for farms with tens of thousands of processors.
Tractor consists of three primary components: the Engine, the Blade, and the Dashboard. The Engine maintains the central job queue and dispatches tasks, the Blade consists of a Python-based execution server running on each remote node, and the Dashboard is a customizable web browser user interface providing centralized control.
Tractor 1.0 will replace Pixar’s Alfred and Alfserver. To aid in the transition for Alfred users, Tractor is designed to be fully compatible with previous Alfred scripts, and is available to customers of those products on current maintenance, as a free upgrade, on a one-to-one basis.
For details on pricing and availability, visit:
